Emilia Bunea | SpeakerHub

Personal Details

Bio

Emilia Bunea is an inspiring speaker both for executive and for wider audiences. Her TED talk, “Why leaders should take their leisure seriously”, has been viewed over a million times. In 2021 she wrote and produced the world's first cinematic management case study, "Clara Banu at Crossroads Life", to be used by educators around the world for teaching leadership to executive and MBA audiences. Central among the case materials is "Crossroads Life", a one-hour film that has received numerous film festival awards.

Having spent nearly two decades in the C-suite, as CFO and later CEO in the financial services industry, Emilia is particularly interested in bridging academic and practitioner perspectives on leadership.

Emilia was CEO of Metlife Romania (an operation with 2 million customers) from 2014 to 2017, CFO of ING Insurance Europe (overseeing a $20bn balance sheet) from 2010 to 2014 and held other CEO and CFO positions prior to that. She holds a PhD in management from Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, she is an alumna of the London Business School’s Senior Executive Program and a CFA charterholder. She is currently on the supervisory board of an asset management company.

Emilia's research focuses on the subject of leaders’ passionate hobbies (formally known as “serious leisure”) and she has interviewed numerous CEOs of major corporations.

Emilia’s research has been published in Frontiers of Psychology, was featured by Harvard Business Review, Les Echos, London Business School Review and was widely mentioned in the general press (The Wall Street Journal, GQ, Le Monde, etc).

Current position (3)

Leadership lecturer

VU University Amsterdam

CEO

ed.movie

Supervisory Board member

Raiffeisen Asset Management Romania

Degrees (2)

PhD in leadership

VU University Amsterdam

2014 to 2020

Executive MBA

University of Washington, Seattle

1994 to 1996

Presentations

Presentations (4)

Developing your humor skills: what leaders need to know

Many leaders are afraid to use humor at work. And… they are right. As research confirms, cracking jokes can get leaders into all sorts of trouble, from not being taken seriously to offending others to signaling that misbehavior is acceptable.

But humor can also be an exceptionally powerful leadership skill. Now more than ever, young talents expect to be inspired by their leaders, and now more than ever, this inspiration needs to be light-handed and creative – in one word, fun.

In this talk, Dr. Emilia Bunea will show how you can turn humor in leadership from a high risk / uncertain reward undertaking to a lower risk/ high reward one. She will draw on her research with business leaders who dabble in comedy, on her own experience with humor while a business executive, and on her insights from teaching humor skills for leaders. Dr. Bunea will not only outline a long-term path to follow for developing your humor muscle, but also share practical tips.

"Leisureship": serious leisure as a leadership development asset

A passionate non-work interest can be a great ally in your leadership development and career. Insights from Emilia's research of "serious leisure", as featured in HBR, London Business School Review, Les Echos, Times of India and other.

Target audience: all corporate levels

The present value of charisma, authenticity and inspiration: Leadership for finance professionals

Authentic leadership, storytelling and sense-making are crucial for leaders' progression and have their own special challenges when it comes to finance leaders. Emilia has 12 years experience as CFO, including being responsible for a €18bn balance sheet, and may be the only Chartered Financial Analyst who researches and teaches leadership.

Target audience: finance managers, managers in the investment industry

"Crossroads Life": a real-life leadership journey

What does leadership mean, in a large organization? How do you juggle managing never-ending change projects and delivering day-to-day results? Will “being true to yourself” help or hinder your success once you’ve been promoted? Is being a leader all in the eye of the beholder? The impostor syndrome: something that only happens to others? Is “politics” a dirty word? What are the sources of power in organizations?
You are invited to discuss these and other questions as we plunge into the world’s first cinematic management case: “Crossroads Life”, developed in cooperation with Harvard Business Publishing, based on real events and created with professional actors and an award-winning director.

Workshops (1)

Peak performance leadership

Full day

Effective leadership means firing on all cylinders. How much under-utilized "fire" is there in you? In this workshop:

Past talks (4)

Developing your humor skills: What leaders need to know

Leadership summit Lisbon

Lisbon, Portugal

October 26, 2023

Sustainable personal passion: a key to success at work

Managed Services Summit

Amsterdam

June 13, 2023

Up Close with Faculty: Women's leadership

London Business School

London

February 26, 2020

"Leisureship": How serious leisure boosts your leadership

Meltwater Global Leadership Summit

Amsterdam

February 10, 2020

All (3)
Videos
Photos (1)
Slides (1)
Press information (1)

This speaker hasn't uploaded any videos yet.

Why CEOs Devote So Much Time to Their Hobbies

This speaker hasn't uploaded any one sheet yet.

Media kit

Books & Articles (5)

Why CEOs devote so much time to their hobbies

How athletic hobbies benefit women's leadership

"Grace under pressure": How CEOs use serious leisure to cope with the demands of their job

Pratiquer un hobby avec passion: Un atout pour diriger

Why global managers need passionate hobbies

Expertise (17)

Leadership

Business

Clients

Metlife

Meltwater

Coface

CFA Institute

Awards & certifications (2)

CFA charterholder

CFA Institute

2001

Non-Executive Director Diploma

Financial Times

2012

Reviews

Testimonials (1)

We invited Emilia to speak at Meltwater's 2020 Global Leadership Summit after seeing her Ted Talk about how leaders benefit from enjoying leisure activities or passions, a topic we found to be very fitting given our audience. Emilia's rare combination of C-suite experience and academic knowledge of the leadership field makes a visible difference from the start. My colleagues found her presentation not only thoroughly entertaining but also deeply thought-provoking. For leadership development seen through an unexpected lens, Emilia is your go-to expert.
Leor Distenfeld

Why choose me?

Acclaimed TED speaker and one of very few leadership academics with experience as a corporate CEO.

Affiliations

Society Speaker Directory